


Five Degrees of Convergence

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Alias
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of encounters between Vaughn and Sark, post series finale: <i>"How come I'm only 'Michael' to you when I'm the one with the gun?"</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Degrees of Convergence

**I.**

There's a distinct sense of _déjà-vu_ that comes with holding Sark at gunpoint. Vaughn would lie if he said it doesn't feel good, doesn't make him feel more alive than four years of changing diapers and cooking dinner and taking long walks on the beach. The admission evokes a brief, almost painless stab of guilt, because he knows that Sydney wouldn't disapprove. She agreed too readily to Dixon's proposal for a temporary reactivation to suggest that she feels any different about being back in the field. Of course, the opportunity to beat the shit out of Sark is an added bonus.

Sark warily eyes him and the gun in his hand, obviously trying to gauge his chances.

"Don't even consider it, or you'll find a big hole in your chest," Vaughn warns. "I'm not going to let you go again."

Sark's voice is low and urgent when he speaks again, and his tone is almost intimate, as if they are working towards a common goal and all Sark is doing is offering a really valuable piece of advice. It's a pretty lame psychological trick, but annoyingly enough – despite being able to see through it – Vaughn is unable to ward off its effect. "Think about it, Michael, there's a bomb in the basement of the embassy that might go off while you're waiting here to guard me until the cavalry arrives. Can you really afford wasting all this time just so the agency can take me into custody?"

He grinds his teeth. "Stop bargaining with me, Sark. I'm not even sure that there _is_ a bomb."

"Maybe there isn't. The question is – are you willing to risk it? With Sydney in there? You wouldn't want your kids to grow up half-orphans, would you?"

He can feel the vein in his temple throbbing. Sark is right, of course. He doesn't know whether there is a bomb or not, but if there is, and it goes off, he'll never forgive himself. Sark smiles when Vaughn starts cursing under his breath, and the smirk doesn't fade when he reaches for his handcuffs to chain Sark to a pipe. Vaughn knows he might as well send him off with a clap on the shoulder and a 'see you around, pal' for good measure, but he feels he has to at least pretend.

He's almost glad when there is indeed a bomb in the embassy. It makes him feel a little (just a little) more like the hero, and less like the dumbass who was fooled by the criminal mastermind and sent off on a wild goose chase. Even though he knows that Sark is probably laughing his ass off somewhere.

He doesn't bother returning to the warehouse where he left Sark; and when Dixon asks about him, Vaughn just shrugs and says that the bomb had priority. Everyone agrees.

"Don't worry about it," Sydney tells him. "There will be another time."

 

**II.**

He sometimes tries to imagine a universe where his and Sark's ways never cross again, and he's never sure whether the scenario sounds wonderful, or terribly boring. It does, of course, depend on his mood. – Being tied to a chair, with several of his fingers broken and his torso covered in nasty bruises, naturally makes him favor the boring option.

McKenas Cole looms over Vaughn with a stone-cold expression and coolly tells him that he's in over his head. When Cole mentions Lauren, Vaughn spits in his face, which earns him another punch in the gut. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can see Sark wincing.

"Dispose of him, would you?" Cole tells Sark, stepping back.

Vaughn tries to battle down the shadows of darkness that threaten to close in on him. He manages to stay conscious, but barely; and the next time he looks up, Cole has left and Sark is right in front of him.

"It seems you have a talent for getting yourself tortured, Mr. Vaughn," Sark comments laconically. His fingers curve around Vaughn's neck, though Vaughn isn't sure whether Sark means to strangle him or check his pulse. He lets his head roll back and squints at the younger man.

"How come I'm only 'Michael' to you when I'm the one with the gun?"

It's a serious question (and one that, at this time, somehow seems important to Vaughn), but instead of an answer, Sark only smiles. – It's probably the first time Vaughn has seen Sark smile a genuine smile, instead of the usual smartass smirk, and he returns it despite himself – despite the pain, and the fact that he has no illusions how this is going to end.

He expects the bullet, but not the mind-numbing, all-encompassing pain when it hits him in the ribcage. It's not exactly a textbook case of an execution. Either Sark is a terribly bad shooter, or a fucking sadist who wants him to slowly bleed to death.

"Fucking son of a bitch," Vaughn mutters.

He barely feels Sark's hand back at his throat, and Sark's voice seems to come from far away.

"For your sake, I hope the reinforcements will be here soon. Don't say I never did anything for you," he hears Sark saying, before the world fades to black.

 

**III.**

Vaughn flips open his cell phone at the fifth ring, taken aback by the 'anonymous caller' sign that seems to spite the fact that this is supposed to be a secret number.

"Hello?"

"It seems you've stepped on the wrong person's toes this time, Michael." There's no introduction, no preliminaries – but then, what did he expect? 'Hi, it's the guy who shot you and left you for dead in Russia. Just calling to see how you're doing.' He can't even bring himself to be surprised that Sark has his number.

He lets out a resigned sigh. "Who? Cole? I thought he already gave it his best shot."

Sydney, who's sitting on the floor playing with Jack a few feet away, gives him an alarmed look. He shakes his head and offers a placating smile. The worry on her face makes way for curiosity, but he disappears out of the room before she can ask any questions.

On the other end of the line, Sark sounds impatient. "This really isn't the time for bad puns."

"So, what? You're calling to tell me you'll come and find me and then kill me?"

If anything, Sark sounds even more exasperated. His voice has a clipped, annoyed edge that's foreign. "I'm calling you to tell you to watch your back."

Before Vaughn can ask what the hell Sark is talking about (or, more importantly, _why_ ), Sark has cut the connection.

It's not really the weirdest phone call Vaughn has received in the last fourteen years, but it's right up there in the top three.

 

**IV.**

When they moved here, at the beginning, they always carried a gun when they opened the door or went for a walk on the beach. It took them years to feel save and accept that their new place was really well-hidden enough that no one would find it without raising a significant amount of dust. They stopped looking over their shoulder at each step, and eventually, they stopped carrying guns at home. – Which is why, on a warm, rainy autumn night, Vaughn is unarmed when he answers the door to find Sark on his doorstep.

It takes him several seconds to shake off the initial shock. If Sark's come to kill him or to take him hostage or whatever else is on a terrorist's schedule these days, he's got the upper hand; Vaughn would have walked right into it, he realizes, mentally berating himself. But Sark does none of these things, and Vaughn is at a loss as to how to react.

"What— How did you find this place?"

"Please! You've been living here for years," Sark says, as if that's an explanation. "I followed you home from Bangladesh."

Vaughn tries to remember the last time he was in Bangladesh, but only comes up with the mission where he abandoned Sark to defuse the bomb at the embassy, back in 2010. He blinks. "You've known where we live for three years?"

"I always thought the information would come in handy one day." In the dim light, Vaughn can make out a faint smirk on Sark's face, but it vanishes as quickly as it appeared as Sark suddenly stumbles and quickly steadies himself against the doorframe. His hand leaves a bloody print on the pale wood. When Vaughn looks down, he sees a small pool of liquid forming on the threshold that seems too dark to be rainwater.

Before he can come up with a really clever thing to say, like 'You're bleeding on my floor,' Sark is stumbling again and Vaughn instinctively steps forward to break his fall.

"I think I need your help," Sark mutters, unresisting as Vaughn drags him into the house. Vaughn doesn't even consider refusing. Sydney is gone on a mission until tomorrow and the kids are staying with Marshall's family for the week, so the only person he's putting in danger is himself. And – and this is something he has never realized before and which leaves him with a queasy feeling in his stomach – he hasn't really been afraid of Sark in years.

As he's taking care of Sark's bullet wounds (three – how Sark made it here without fainting is a mystery to him), he wonders how this happened, how the raging hatred and paralyzing fear he felt for this man back when Lauren and Sark were torturing him quietly melted away into this strange kind of understanding. He tries to rationalize it with Sark's recent behavior: his not killing Vaughn despite being ordered to, and the warning that eventually led to having Cole back in CIA custody (quite possibly the original purpose of Sark's ploy; Vaughn isn't so naïve to take Sark for a selfless man). But when Vaughn is honest with himself, he knows that he started softening towards Sark before that, otherwise he'd have never let him go, back in Hong Kong all those years ago.

"I can hear you thinking," Sark says suddenly.

Vaughn frowns at him. "You're hallucinating," he says, helpfully. The injuries are pretty bad, and the pain from Vaughn poking around in the wounds to try and get the bullets out must be intense. It wouldn't surprise him if Sark started seeing pink elephants.

"I meant that in a metaphorical way," Sark replies, a lot more lucid than Vaughn expected him to be, even if his voice is weak and misses the usual edge. "You were always far too easy to read."

Sark's hand comes up to curve around the small of Vaughn's back, and Vaughn tells himself that Sark is only steadying himself. They don't speak again until the bullets are out and the wounds are bandaged and even then, they don't really _say_ anything.

Vaughn wakes up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat. There were noises that, he's pretty sure, didn't come from his dream; and he half-expects to find Sark standing above him with a gun. It's only Sydney, though, who's quietly shedding her clothes.

"Hey."

"Hey. Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up." She might be smiling, but he can't really make out her features in the dark. "I took an earlier flight." There's a small, meaningful pause before she continues, "Vaughn…"

He almost winces. It's not that hard to guess which question is going to come.

"Why is Sark sleeping on our couch?"

"It's… a long story." It's not really true, strictly speaking. He just has no clue how to explain it to Sydney when he doesn't really understand it himself. "Let's talk about it tomorrow, okay?"

Sydney agrees, though he can sense her hesitance.

The next morning, Sark is gone, with no trace left that he was ever there to begin with. Neither he nor Sydney mention the incident again. Maybe, if they don't talk about it, it means that it never happened.

 

**V.**

"For someone who claims his only goal is to be on the winning team, you end up on the losing side pretty often."

There they are again, on opposite sides, facing each other over the barrel of a gun. Vaughn tries to appreciate that, finally, the old order is resumed again. But things are no longer black and white, and smashing Sark's face into the wall didn't give him the satisfaction it used to.

Sark gingerly feels his lips with his fingers, frowning when they come away blood-stained. "Bear in mind that my options are limited, Michael. After all, I can only offer my services to those who want it. And forgive me if I don't appreciate being stuck in a glass cage."

Vaughn grimaces. "You should work on your subtlety, Sark." He puts the gun away, but keeps an eye on Sark.

"I've found that subtlety rarely works with you," Sark quips, deadpan.

Vaughn smiles despite himself, and reaches out to offer Sark a hand and pull him to his feet. The touch lingers for a moment, just a fraction too long, before Vaughn abruptly steps away and tries to school his face into cool nonchalance. He's under no illusion that it works on Sark. "I suppose I could ask around, see if my people have any use for your 'services'."

"Please do. Ideally before my current employers start asking uncomfortable questions such as why the two of us always find ourselves in a stand-off and yet manage to make it out alive."

"I'm kinda wondering about that, myself," Vaughn wryly replies.

"And this is precisely why subtlety is completely lost on you."

He wants to explain that there is a difference between not understanding something and not _wanting_ to understand, but he doesn't. Either he'd be giving away too much by saying this, or Sark already knows. So instead, he tells him, "Maybe you have to spell it out to me."

Sark gives him a withering look that could be saying 'I know what you're doing, but I'll just humor you anyway'.

"Perhaps. Try to convey my offer to your people, and we'll see."

 


End file.
